"Lax Security" IS accepteble. It all depends on your environment and what you are securing from.
In a school the problem you face on studen desktops is accidental file system or OS coruption. Block access to the local file system and you solve that problem.
Malicius attacks from tech savy students ?
You CAN'T protect against that with technology and maintain usefulness as an educational tool. Onless the technology in question is survailance cameras.
"However, comparing a simpler product's performance to (crippled versions of) more robust products is silly."
Ohhmmm... They didn't compare performance at all.
Just did a basic install and initial setup then ran with the feature list and compared price/alowed configs.
The article basicaly confirms what I recomend (and you probebly do) anyway. I.e. If the Free product can do the job "corectly" (Catch all term for performance, reliability features etc...) there is no need for the $$$ databases.
If however you need to do something that only a comercial database will alow you have to get that database.
Most of my customers NEVER chose the databases they use. They chose a specific application then got that app vendor to spell out what database, OS and Hardware they recomend for this workload.
And just to clarify. I am not making a judgment on Linus' comment. I gave up on trying to use Gnome years ago. KDE always worked for me. When I 1st tried Gnome the excuse was that "it started a year later and was thus a little behind KDE but it will catch up".
Now almost a decade into the project and with an order of magnitude (10 times for those who don't know) more money spent on development Gnome was still far behind KDE when I gave up on it sometime around 2002 or 2003.
PS: Since I stopped trying to use Gnome so long ago I won't make any specifc coments about the curent quality. For all I know Gnome may have surpased KDE since then.
Dumb people try really hard to not have subordinates smarter than they are.
It just shows them up.
I have for instance seen an entire government jeopardized because the prime minister is an ass and surrounds himself with ministers even dumber than he is. Those ministers then employ senior civil servants, board members and consultants at an even lower level of the intelligence scale so that the only competent people in the whole government beurocrasy are are at relatively low levels and conceal this fact so as to not louse the job.
Note: I said "Prime Minister", Not President. Not everything is about America.
It doesn't have to be any "feature" or additional formatting option.
Office documents, even in XML derivatives are produced in a mostly WYSIWYG interface by people who dread interacting with the PC.
All MS has to do is "misread" the standard. So that when you select 8 point, bold and italic for a line of text it inserts a different set of formatting information to produce that result on MS products than is used on "standard" products.
The end result will be that MSOffice documents look strange in KOffice and vise versa.
People will complain bitterly about them not actually implementing the standard and they will respond by claiming 99.5% compliance etc...
It will go on for years and get nasty. maybe even in court.
I was cleaning out some old boxes and found a payslip from 1993. That was my 1st tech job and I quit it when the government announced that the Minimum wage would be raised to above what I was making then.
It brought into focus just how horribly underpaid I really was.
Canada's system relies on thousands of humans counting and recounting the ballots under supervision. Those people will either be paid or will volunteer.
The latter option isn't that popular in the states, the former option costs more than voting machines.
What about fair elections?
The fact is that a self respecting population would have Bush so far behind in popularity that a win by him would immediately be declared bogus.
Slashdot might not like this but the only thing Bush had in his favor was a clear anti gay position. Most Americans have similar views but are afraid to express them publicly.
I would have kits and cables to conect any disk to a very simple, test "box" SCSI, SATA, IDE (2.5" & 3.5"). including a PERC 3/DC (Dell RAID card) Box is in quotes because it would never actualy be closed.
It should have a multiboot disk drive (Linux and a few other OSs.) a 2nd very large drive for dumping rescued data. A DVD/CD burner and DAT drive for returning rescued data to clients.
A small vacum cleaner and some canned air are esential (Broken computers tend to be dirty).
A set of Jewelers screwdrivers (For laptop work).
A Leatherman (look it up)
test motherboards that support the more common dimm formats. (Cheaper than a memory tester).
A stack of utility software like ghost and a Windows pasword hack utility.
And last but not least; an anty static wrist strap.
I would have kits and cables to conect any disk to a very simple, test "box" SCSI, SATA, IDE (2.5" & 3.5"). including a PERC 3/DC (Dell RAID card) Box is in quotes because it would never actualy be closed.
It should have a multiboot disk drive (Linux and a few other OSs.) a 2nd very large drive for dumping rescued data. A DVD/CD burner and DAT drive for returning rescued data to clients.
A small vacum cleaner and some canned air are esential (Broken computers tend to be dirty).
A set of Jewelers screwdrivers (For laptop work).
A Leatherman (look it up)
And last but not least; an anty static wrist strap.
Let's moderate some absolutly inane and brainless questions to the top and encorage The operators (Taco et al) to send them on.
This will encorage Microsoft to underestimate us and perhaps continue the lame fud campaign rather than filing a large number of frivulos lawsuites and trying to do real damage.
Look at it this way. The enginearing cost to get cache onto the drive at all is probebly the same for 16MB as for 2MB.
The other cost to consider are the RAM chips themselvs and in the topsy turvy world of Tiwanease suplyers and volume priceing, a 16MB chip may be cheaper than all it's smaller siblings.
Not everyone can afford a backup solution, some rely on raid protection, and others rely on a lucky rabbit's foot. Since I am in the 2nd category,
Smart. At least you know that RAID without a backup isn't any more protection than the Rabit's Foot.:).
I am seriusly going to write an article or 2 laying out where "conventional wisdome" in IT turns out to be dumb.
Best example. A 2 machine failover cluster built around an external SCSI enclosure and Win2K Advanced Server cluster services. I.e. More points of failure that will take the service off line than you have with a single box that runs it's backups to a copy of itself.
Slashdot Mirror
"Lax Security" IS accepteble. It all depends on your environment and what you are securing from.
In a school the problem you face on studen desktops is accidental file system or OS coruption. Block access to the local file system and you solve that problem.
Malicius attacks from tech savy students ?
You CAN'T protect against that with technology and maintain usefulness as an educational tool. Onless the technology in question is survailance cameras.
"However, comparing a simpler product's performance to (crippled versions of) more robust products is silly."
Ohhmmm... They didn't compare performance at all.
Just did a basic install and initial setup then ran with the feature list and compared price/alowed configs.
The article basicaly confirms what I recomend (and you probebly do) anyway. I.e. If the Free product can do the job "corectly" (Catch all term for performance, reliability features etc...) there is no need for the $$$ databases.
If however you need to do something that only a comercial database will alow you have to get that database.
Most of my customers NEVER chose the databases they use. They chose a specific application then got that app vendor to spell out what database, OS and Hardware they recomend for this workload.
Dose anyone know where I can find pictures of the Apolo landing site (somewhere in the sea of tranquility on the moon) taken from earth ?
that would be interesting.
And just to clarify. I am not making a judgment on Linus' comment. I gave up on trying to use Gnome years ago. KDE always worked for me. When I 1st tried Gnome the excuse was that "it started a year later and was thus a little behind KDE but it will catch up".
Now almost a decade into the project and with an order of magnitude (10 times for those who don't know) more money spent on development Gnome was still far behind KDE when I gave up on it sometime around 2002 or 2003.
PS: Since I stopped trying to use Gnome so long ago I won't make any specifc coments about the curent quality. For all I know Gnome may have surpased KDE since then.
"Misunderestimate"
That word is rememberd because it was part of the drivel spouted by the President of the USA.
How people in positiuns of power think is important because it helps other people to deside whether to keap them in those positions.
There are a whole bunch of viable successors. Alan Cox heads the list.
However you would have to assassinate Linus or wait until he falls down on the technical competence area of kernel maintenance.
The guys who could take over don't want to on some political vendetta.
BTW: If you think Linus is obnoxious you just haven't spoken to Alan recently.
Not all contries have zip codes.
So a bogus looking zip code means absolutely zip. (Pun intended)
Nope.
But thanks for pointing that out.
It's not an IT thing.
Dumb people try really hard to not have subordinates smarter than they are.
It just shows them up.
I have for instance seen an entire government jeopardized because the prime minister is an ass and surrounds himself with ministers even dumber than he is. Those ministers then employ senior civil servants, board members and consultants at an even lower level of the intelligence scale so that the only competent people in the whole government beurocrasy are are at relatively low levels and conceal this fact so as to not louse the job.
Note: I said "Prime Minister", Not President. Not everything is about America.
THEY ARE STATUES!!
Men should act like men.
It doesn't have to be any "feature" or additional formatting option.
Office documents, even in XML derivatives are produced in a mostly WYSIWYG interface by people who dread interacting with the PC.
All MS has to do is "misread" the standard. So that when you select 8 point, bold and italic for a line of text it inserts a different set of formatting information to produce that result on MS products than is used on "standard" products.
The end result will be that MSOffice documents look strange in KOffice and vise versa.
People will complain bitterly about them not actually implementing the standard and they will respond by claiming 99.5% compliance etc...
It will go on for years and get nasty. maybe even in court.
Microsoft has never done office on any OS that was price competitive with Windows.
In other words the cheapest way to achive "100% compatibility with MSOffice Docs" is to get todays low end PC with Windows and MSOffice.
Office on Mac/PPC or Office on Solaris/Sparc are not a threat since the hardware has to be factord into the overall cost.
And just to make sure Office ports cost more than Windows Office.
There was never an Office for OS/2 and there will never be one for Linux. Not onless "MS Office Doc compatibility" stopped being important.
This topic is so appropriate for today.
I was cleaning out some old boxes and found a payslip from 1993. That was my 1st tech job and I quit it when the government announced that the Minimum wage would be raised to above what I was making then.
It brought into focus just how horribly underpaid I really was.
Canada's system relies on thousands of humans counting and recounting the ballots under supervision. Those people will either be paid or will volunteer.
The latter option isn't that popular in the states, the former option costs more than voting machines.
What about fair elections?
The fact is that a self respecting population would have Bush so far behind in popularity that a win by him would immediately be declared bogus.
Slashdot might not like this but the only thing Bush had in his favor was a clear anti gay position. Most Americans have similar views but are afraid to express them publicly.
2 things.
1. I havn't solderd inside a computer in years.
2. I want the thing I'm repairing on a diferent UPS from the machine I keap my documentation etc... on.
If you ever see a short circuit on the output side of a UPS you will agree.
I would have kits and cables to conect any disk to a very simple, test "box" SCSI, SATA, IDE (2.5" & 3.5"). including a PERC 3/DC (Dell RAID card) Box is in quotes because it would never actualy be closed.
:)
It should have a multiboot disk drive (Linux and a few other OSs.) a 2nd very large drive for dumping rescued data. A DVD/CD burner and DAT drive for returning rescued data to clients.
A small vacum cleaner and some canned air are esential (Broken computers tend to be dirty).
A set of Jewelers screwdrivers (For laptop work).
A Leatherman (look it up)
test motherboards that support the more common dimm formats. (Cheaper than a memory tester).
A stack of utility software like ghost and a Windows pasword hack utility.
And last but not least; an anty static wrist strap.
PS: Ohh and a competent enginear.
I would have kits and cables to conect any disk to a very simple, test "box" SCSI, SATA, IDE (2.5" & 3.5"). including a PERC 3/DC (Dell RAID card) Box is in quotes because it would never actualy be closed.
:)
It should have a multiboot disk drive (Linux and a few other OSs.) a 2nd very large drive for dumping rescued data. A DVD/CD burner and DAT drive for returning rescued data to clients.
A small vacum cleaner and some canned air are esential (Broken computers tend to be dirty).
A set of Jewelers screwdrivers (For laptop work).
A Leatherman (look it up)
And last but not least; an anty static wrist strap.
PS: Ohh and a competent enginear.
Yeah the 145 Million figure was way off. (126 Million total).
However, Bleached blond is not the same as real blond. The eyes have to match etc...
I am a man who has been considerd "exotic". Women in some cultures think that a a tall Jamaican Black man is exotic.
While in Jamaica there is a new fad of rail thin women with big brests. Most of the girls hear would put JL's ass to shame.
exotic == uncomon.
There are around 145 Million Japaneas women. Almost none of them are blond.
Lots of scientists when asked about influences and encoragment mention Sci-Fi as a major one.
The whole point of judicial aproval is that..
1. Judges understand the rules and are thus less likely to grant requests without justification.
2. They can't claim "I didn't know 'screwing my wife' isn't a valid reason for a wiretap". (See #1)
3. They add an extra person to the process. I.e. Detective wants wiretap. -> Gets his supervisor -> Supervisor goes to Judge.
The Judge dosn't have to be any more unbiased or less curropt. He just dosn't have the same personal motivs.
I.e. Your wife sleaping around dosn't afect him so you need to justify the tap.
Note that I use wiretap throghout this post. That's because eavsdroping on email is EXACTLY the same as a wiretap.
Yahwn.
Slashdot has always been like this. In fact the bigest change is that these days, some stories have better spelling than my coments.
Let's moderate some absolutly inane and brainless questions to the top and encorage The operators (Taco et al) to send them on.
This will encorage Microsoft to underestimate us and perhaps continue the lame fud campaign rather than filing a large number of frivulos lawsuites and trying to do real damage.
Look at it this way. The enginearing cost to get cache onto the drive at all is probebly the same for 16MB as for 2MB.
The other cost to consider are the RAM chips themselvs and in the topsy turvy world of Tiwanease suplyers and volume priceing, a 16MB chip may be cheaper than all it's smaller siblings.
Smart. At least you know that RAID without a backup isn't any more protection than the Rabit's Foot.
I am seriusly going to write an article or 2 laying out where "conventional wisdome" in IT turns out to be dumb.
Best example. A 2 machine failover cluster built around an external SCSI enclosure and Win2K Advanced Server cluster services. I.e. More points of failure that will take the service off line than you have with a single box that runs it's backups to a copy of itself.